Jersey City streets looking clearer as snow is removed

A day after Jersey City received 500 tons of rock salt and implemented a citywide snow removal operation, the condition of city streets is vastly improved.

Even roads like Van Reypen Street, which Monday was coated in three inches of ice, are passable once again. You could even see bits of asphalt peeking out in between patches of the remaining snow, ice and slush.

Ogden Avenue in the Heights, which was a “sheet of ice” after Thursday’s nor’easter, is returning to normal. Chuck Hollowell, 62, said, “I think they did a pretty good job, considering we’re a side street,” said Hollowell.

At Journal Square, police cars had the plaza just outside The Jersey Journal building, the news organization’s former home, blocked off to traffic as crews removed mountains of snow. Monday, the plaza was suitable for ice skating. Also yesterday, a one-man crew was removing snow from the perimeter of Van Vorst Park, which was particularly treacherous for pedestrians.

Rich Boggiano, who represents Ward C on the City Council and is a frequent Fulop critic, said all of this activity is needed but overdue.

“What they’re doing today with the Dumpsters, the backhoes … they should have done that for the last week,” Boggiano said.

Asked to respond, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said Boggiano is “well aware” that equipment was redeployed after the city’s salt supply ran short last week.

However, snow removal on Montgomery Street caused traffic to back up to Kennedy Boulevard yesterday afternoon as crews closed off part of the eastbound portion of the roadway near Summit Avenue to remove snow.

Hudson County spokesman Jim Kennelly said the county last night began a lane-widening plan on Kennedy Boulevard and other county roads, with crosswalks and bus stops being cleared as well.

Kennelly said plows will not do curb-to-curb snow removal because it would require extra manpower and additional heavy-duty snow-removal vehicles. Kennelly said the cost of a full-scale curb-to-curb removal along roads that stretch across Hudson County would cost more than $1 million.

Louis Severino, 53, who lives on Kennedy Boulevard near 29th Street and has trouble walking, said going to and from his snow-buried car was akin to “doing the (Winter) Olympics.

“I called Bayonne since I heard other streets were clear but they told me it was a county issue,” said Severino, adding that he received four tickets for parking on Kennedy Boulevard.

Kennelly said the county waited for the warmer weather to melt the snow.

“The decision was made at an administrative level,” said Kennelly. “Do we really want to declare a state of emergency?”

Kennelly said the approach taken wes the most prudent because of the costs involved.